The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has issued the Amended Departmental Examination Rules for Income Tax Inspectors, 2026, applicable from the 2026 examination onwards.
Under the revised rules, the departmental examination will consist of five papers covering Income Tax Law, Accountancy & Book-Keeping, Allied Laws & Office Procedure, IT Applications & Operations, and Rajbhasha Hindi, with each paper carrying 100 marks.
Key changes include a maximum of 10 chances for new-pattern candidates, special additional chances for qualifying the newly introduced Paper-IV: IT Applications & Operations, revised paper-matching provisions for old-pattern candidates, and qualifying marks of 50% (45% for SC/ST/PwBD candidates) in applicable cases.
The new Paper IV focuses on departmental digital systems and applications such as ITBA, HRMS, Insight, e-verification and digital forensics, making IT-related operational knowledge an important part of the revised examination. CASansaar